New York City duo Dead Waves recently released a new single, consisting of two new tracks: ‘Secret Violence’ and ‘The Visitor Part 2 on the band’s label, Entheon Records.

Brothers Nick and Teddy Panopoulos are NYC natives who together have been churning out dazzling outsider-music under the Dead Waves name for a decade. Perched in the outer reaches of Queens, watching from a distance as trends come and go, Nick and Teddy have marched to their own beat from the start, delivering highly compelling works of art that follow no one else’s lead. Initially bashing out noisy rock, with releases produced by the likes of Steve Albini and Martin Bisi, the brothers have gradually dropped the volume over the years and stripped things down to skeletal basics. 2018’s ‘God of the Wild’ and 2022’s ‘Abandoned Children’ saw Dead Waves submerge into a hypnagogic zone of murky psych and folk, at times utilizing a lyre in honor of their Greek heritage.

“You don’t want to compromise your individual expression and feeling for anyone”

How much time and effort went into recording ‘Secret Violence’ and ‘The Visitor Part 2’?

Although it only shows as a two song single, a lot of time went into recording it, mainly because it was originally intended to be a four to five song EP. The more we were recording them all, we started to realize how much more we liked ‘Secret Violence’ and ‘The Visitor Part 2,’ mainly because we didn’t like how the other three were going, for some reason. They seemed too structured and cliched and not what I got into making music for. The more you grow and become comfortable with just being you, you realize why you started getting into any art or form of expression in the first place. To me, to at least do it for yourself, to get something out, like a form of self therapy or connecting back to consciousness, beyond our five limited senses, for existence, or whatever it may be. You don’t want to compromise your individual expression and feeling for anyone, not to your audience, not for your peers, not for any tribe or anything to feel a warm sense of belonging. It’s something special, a last form of true freedom, and for me at least I don’t want to compromise that, even for a fraction, to fit in or chasing fame or fortune, whatever bullshit self-reasoning and justifications people need to say to themselves. So, the other songs I threw away, and I know I was speaking in hyperbole but for me even thinking they resembled a micro-sub-fraction of any of that compromise, made me disgusted and I wanted to vomit. One day I was doing this impersonation, while making a joke to my brother about how they sound to me now, how it feels like we should be playing stadium shows or corporate festival music and might as well be be telling the audience to clap their hands along, and thanking the sponsors from a big biotech company, or a petroleum company, or a bank, and thanking our troops and becoming cheerleaders for the military industrial complex. Like, what’s next, we want to be mainstream artists making T-Mobile music? The other reason why we stuck with those two songs is that for this release I wanted to stick with our basic drum machine and the other songs didn’t have it on them. We wanted this release to bring back our minimal analog drum machine.

<a href="https://deadwaves.com/album/secret-violence-the-visitor-part-2">Secret Violence/The Visitor Part 2 by Dead Waves</a>

Are you planning to work on an album? Will these two singles be part of it?

These singles will remain singles, but we’re always constantly working and creating when we have free time, when we both have time off between our jobs. I feel like now we’re constantly going to be doing single releases or at most an EP. We really like not having to force anything that doesn’t seem natural to us, so releasing singles or an EP kind of goes with our flow these days, but it’s all relevant because maybe we’ll have more time off from work and get to sit there for that window of time and create a lot more music.

How did you first get interested in music and what would you say were some of the early influences that got you interested in music?

I know it might sound cliche but I felt like music was always an innate internal part of me, like something needed to sustain life, like oxygen. It’s always been appealing and something we both sought out, like whatever captured that indescribable feeling and transcended with it, whether it be an emotion or feeling like you were actually alive, whether it had a feeling of darkness or sadness or something more uplifting. No matter if it was in another language you can’t understand or it was a language you did, the music itself or the way the words were being used as a melody or emotion, you can feel it regardless. That was the power of music that we both felt from an early age, whether it was my grandfather listening to his collection of 45’s and cassettes of obscure Greek mountain folk music, or hearing a song played at your record store or at a bar, you might not be able to make anything out, but you will feel the music and connect and transport you to something you needed or can’t explain but want to, and that’s mostly what matters. So at a very early age, days before the internet, we had to take whatever we could get, so that usually meant finding stuff that really spoke to us through sharing with our friends or turning on the radio or TV and sometimes on the off hours programming you got to hear the more alternative types of music. So our early influences really were whatever we got to hear and felt move us and made us feel. You can sense the realness, whether it was some sort of real sadness, or bittersweet existentialism, or pain, or just anything with honesty, like that obscure Greek mountain folk music from my grandfather, or our older cousin’s DIY punk band, or turning on the radio and hearing something that felt a little less bland but still made it into the commercial mainstream, where the artists were actually being artists. It felt more human, more flawed, more real to us and I guess it resonated with us at the earliest age.

When did the decision to start the band come about?

I was in a couple of bands before but I always wanted to start my own project, my own band, so it was right after my father had passed away and I was feeling really down and fucked up and I figured, why am I still waiting on being my true self and doing and expressing how I really feel and who I really am. This existence is so brief and short and there is no better time than now to be your honest true self and do whatever you really want to do, especially when it comes to your art or life passions. In this world, the way they make and construct it, the owners, oligarchs, whatever you want to call them, with the owners and their bland reality, or perception of it, being imposed on you directly or indirectly, it’s hard to actually be your true, honest, vulnerable self. Through music, I felt that was my outlet, so that’s why I try not to corrupt or compromise it, I feel like that’s the only thing that is free and I have left, that only last form of freedom to me.

Were you in other bands before Dead Waves began?

Yeah I was in a band before Dead Waves. We did several shows locally around New York, mostly underground, and then before that me and my brother Nick were in a short lived project just primarily making instrumental music together but we never really pursued anything with it or did any shows.

How do you usually approach music making?

How we approach making our music usually comes from a blank slate, not going into our room thinking we want to have a specific certain approach or sound, and we can hit any note or chord or anything on our instruments, sort of resonating with our pure primal instincts and then see what comes from it. Sometimes it’s something we like and expresses what we truly were trying to channel and made us feel in the moment and takes us away, kind of transports us out of body, so to speak, and just being, or sometimes it can be exactly the reasons why we didn’t get into music in the first place and doesn’t make us feel anything. And those are the songs we try never to work on, or we realize it later and throw it away during the recording process. So basically, when approaching making our music and starting like that, it can be anything really, like how one of of us is feeling or trying to get something out of them for a therapeutic effect, whether it’s calling out on themselves to channel and feel some self-empowerment that’s needed or the self-empowerment and comfort and solace and contentedness that can sometimes be found in feeling lonely, or that feeling or notion to want to evolve into something more, or purposely melting our ego and embracing that magickal indescribable feeling of that everything nothingness or consciousness or nihilism that resonates within us and give a finger to it all, everything and existence itself, us. There’s a certain sort of freedom and truth in that, a relief that’s long been overdue in us. And I feel with music, that’s magickal power and channeling it can help us be more of our true selves, even if it’s no self.

I have some difficulties with your discography, is ‘Take Me Away’ EP your debut release?

Yeah, ‘Take Me Away’ EP was the first real thing that we released as a band. Anything before that was some self recorded stuff that wasn’t officially released, more like put together demos so we had something up there to start playing shows.

And then ‘Oracles of the Grave/Promise’ followed?

Yeah, with ‘Oracles of the Grave/Promise’ we went to Chicago to record it with Steve Albini at his studio, Electrical Audio. We wanted to record with someone, and especially with someone we really respected musically, morally and their overall approach and work ethic. He keeps that true independent and DIY ethos alive. One of the rooms we stayed in overnight at the studio had a giant vintage Dead Moon poster, well maybe it just looked giant to us because we loved it and we jokingly took it as a sign as it meant to be and just keep doing your thing. I mean that band is the epitome of DIY work ethic and making and playing music because you love it. The whole experience over there was great even though we only had one day to record.

What’s the story behind the making of ‘Nature’?

So after ‘Oracles of the Grave/Promise’ we got approached by a borderline major-type independent label and the deal just didn’t work out, I really didn’t feel comfortable being on the same label with some of the other bands/“artists” that were on there and kind of self-sabotaged it because to me honestly it kind of depressed me, even though a few of the artists were actual artists, the rest just grossed me out and in a weird way felt that I would be typecasting myself as one of those corny cliche heavy acts on their label, benefitting the label and hurting me in the future. I didn’t want to compromise the last remaining freedom in this matrix-like existence.

So basically we had no money left, and Nature were the demos we had recorded in our rehearsal space at the time. Meanwhile when we were recording it, there was a construction team on the floor above us doing repairs and at the time we were at an all time low and jokingly I turned to the band and said let’s make something out of this low point, let’s record the sound of the drills on top of us and then loop them and put some of effects on them. They are the songs ‘Hide’ and ‘Seek,’ the intro and outro of that album.

What about ‘God of the Wild’?

That album was the second album we recorded with our friend Martin Bisi at his studio BC Studio. The first album we recorded with him was ‘Living Inside’. He is another person we truly respect musically, morally, and his overall approach and work ethic as well. We met him through a friend after we recorded ‘Nature’. It was also our first album as a two piece with no drums at all. As this was going to be our first release being a two piece we wanted it to be a special reintroduction to the project as a two piece and didn’t even want any percussion or drums on it, something to signify between the two of us, that we’re alone and we don’t need to rely on anyone or anything other than ourselves and we wanted to break away from any cliche norms in contemporary music. I had my acoustic lyre and flute laying around that I had picked up while visiting Greece several years earlier and started playing them, and they were helping me get by during a really bad time for me. And from that feeling of stripping everything away and having that notion of almost starting over, we felt some sort of needed alienation away from it all anyway and we were channeling some sort of ancient energy that was a shared bond and rooted in our last name coming from the word ‘Pan’ meaning everything and all, and it being the ancient god of the wild.

What are some bands/musicians that have a big influence on you?

There are so many, so I would be missing a lot by trying to answer this with only four to five artists. I mean, to be honest, Martin Bisi, Steve Albini and Victor Van Vugt are all people we worked with because the bands they recorded had huge influences on us, like the Swans, Einstürzende Neubauten, Jesus Lizard, Big Black, Pixies, Boredoms, Nirvana, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, to World Domination Enterprises and PJ Harvey. I mean the list goes on and on between them and there’s a ton of other bands who haven’t worked with them that influenced us but we’d be here all day…but off the top of my head, what comes to mind would be Hanatarash, Townes Van Zandt and the other outlaw country artists, to Earth, Ramones, The Gun Club, Leonard Cohen, Lee Hazlewood, Psychic TV, Melvins, Zos Kia and Neu!. But as of now we really try not to be influenced by anything at all and continue to be desolate in our creations when we’re together in the room and months leading up to trying to create, how I mentioned above in the creative process.

“What we perceive of this existence is short and fleeting”

Do you often play live? Who are some of your personal favorite bands that you’ve had a chance to play with over the past few years?

We’re going to start booking and playing live again after the release of this single. Locally here in NYC some of our personal favorite bands we like to play with when we get a chance are Martin Bisi’s band, Tidal Channel and also looking forward to playing with another one of our favorites which is Body Stuff, whose song ‘New York in the Rain’ is one of our favorites that we’ve heard in a while. These are all people we’ve shared drinks with and talked real shit with, that we can call friends, they’re all in it for real. I guess we all share an affinity and kindred spirits. We can tell who’s in it and who gets it, their values and what they stand for all around. There’s obviously other bands and musicians as well, just might be a bit much to name them all. We’ve played with other bands but it’s always like when you talk to them there’s not really a person, their eyes keep moving and looking around to see who they could network with, and who is of importance to go run over and talk to. It feels like they are sociopath careerists in it for the wrong reasons, they probably should have chosen a different path, but usually by the time they reach their mid-30’s they fall back on their privileged back up career paths they always had planned for them if this didn’t work out and they didn’t “make it.” And not even speaking in hyperbole, I’ve seen most of them now, go back and they are young professional yuppies in their fields but still living in and around the gentrified “scene” they helped create for the developers in Brooklyn.

What are some future plans?

Just keeping on, working/surviving, playing shows, and keep on creating and putting out new music. Also continuing to get my heart broken and also the god damn nightmare of fixing our car so we can keep on playing, setting up tours and getting to shows..

Let’s end this interview with some of your favourite albums. Have you found something new lately you would like to recommend to our readers?

Too many albums to name, but over the past several years we really appreciated finding a favorite new album which was F.J. McMahon’s 1969 release of ‘Spirit of the Golden Juice’.

Thank you. Last word is yours.

If you’re reading this, there’s a reason why you seek out independent or more non-mainstream non-commercial types of arts and music. Even if we can’t connect the entire picture we can always feel that inclination, that depressing feeling of that empty bland corporate conglomerate life force-draining consumeristic corrupt system around us in every part of our lives and subconsciously even if we trick ourselves or not know that life, what we perceive of this existence is short and fleeting, and it’s nice to know you can find still find these outlets where you don’t feel so alone and have the option to still be able to discover and listen to music from artists who take everything in their own hands and create, write, and perform their own material, who do it because they need to, for the love of it and are not part of that other matrix-like world. Keep on doing what you’re doing, you get it. Always stay clear, stay weird, stay self-reliant and self-sustainable, know yourself, know your whole, embrace vulnerability, not naivety, and always a middle finger to those who try to impose their will on you or any sentient being, but stay kind and keep your eye open, don’t let them get to you. And try to catch yourself from sounding like I just did, like some douchey motivational/inspirational mountain climbing poster.

Klemen Breznikar

Headline photo: Ursula Sommer

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